A Problem For Tomorrow
by Karazor
Summary: A pair of Jedi encounter a horrific creature while investigating Trade Federation assets at the start of the Clone Wars


_DISCLAIMER: I own neither Star Wars nor Warhammer 40000. This is written purely for my own entertainment._

**A Problem For Tomorrow**

_The creature rested, alone in the abandoned tunnels. The Chorus was faint in the back of its mind, attenuated by distance. This did not bother it; it was bred as a scout. That was why the spore that had held it had been embedded in that asteroid; that was how it had survived the landing on this life-filled world. It could hear the hum of another chorus, an alien chorus of alien thought, all around it. This was good. The thoughts meant meat, both for consumption and to be tainted as material for a new chorus._

_Oh, yes. The creature would build its own chorus. And when that chorus had grown mighty, its call would reach across the cold, lifeless void…_

_And the others would come._

* * *

><p>Two figures strode through the city streets, unhurried. Both were entirely unremarkable in appearance: a middle-aged man with short, dark hair going grey at the temples, and a young woman, reddish-brown hair also cut short, save for a single small braid on the left side. Both were human, both were fit without being over-muscled, and both were dressed in unadorned, brown robes.<p>

Both were also Jedi.

The Jedi Knight Arem Jol-Kober and his apprentice, Padawan Tasi Solren, had come to this world with a very specific objective in mind, though it didn't show in their relaxed, casual pace. Tensions with the Trade Federation had been rising of late, ever since the incident on Naboo. The sizable Federation offices on this world, Keffia, made it almost inevitable that a Jedi or two would just happen to drop by.

It would have been difficult indeed for a casual observer to discern their destination. Even a suspicious watcher, such as the Neimoidian coordinating the four pairs of battle droids shadowing the Jedi in a fashion he fondly assumed was unobtrusive, could have been forgiven for drawing an incorrect assumption.

That was, after all, the entire point.

The route the two were following as they strolled along, chatting idly in a fashion most of those who passed them assumed indicated an uncle and his favorite niece, took them close by the entry to a series of elevated accessways that ran between the top floors of the various buildings in the city.

Their Neimoidian watcher hadn't noticed that fact yet, but they were hoping that he would.

As the two rounded a corner that would screen them for a split instant from the druids following them, they dropped their casual pose. Both lightsabers ignited in the same instant, in a maneuver they'd practiced enough to make it sound like the ignition of a single lightsaber.

Which was, again, the whole point.

Arem's saber left his hand in a well-controlled throw, flying to the door that screened the accessway and severing the lock, while at the same moment, Tasi sliced a holding bar on an ancient, near-forgotten trap door on the opposite side of the narrow, alley-like footpath. As they closed down their sabers with the same carefully practiced synchronization, Tasi flipped the trapdoor open with a quick touch of the Force. She dropped down into the ancient tunnel, hopped forward a pace so her master would have room, and closed the hatch softly as soon as he landed. Her control was deft enough that the heavy trap door made not the slightest click as it closed, flush with the street surface, just before the first droid came dashing around the corner.

Perfect.

* * *

><p>The two Jedi paused in absolute stillness, waiting to see if the droids fell for their ruse. The trapdoor was far too thick for either to hear anything from the street, but both extended their senses through the Force, and knew at once when the droids entered the rooftop access door.<p>

"That was well done, Little One." Arem said as he hung his lightsaber on his belt. "You'll make Jedi Knight much sooner than most."

"Just trying to cultivate a subtler approach, Master. It did work better than my plan at Soterak."

Arem glowered slightly. "Yes, indeed, Little One. And that is one I would rather _not_ have repeated."

Tasi winced exaggeratedly, but couldn't hide her grin. It had taken her _days_ with the various maps of the city to find that spot. Jedi reserve couldn't keep her from being a bit proud of herself. It had worked so _well_.

"Soterak aside, Master, it should be hours before the droids figure out we're not in the rooftops, and longer after that before they think to look down here. These tunnels aren't even marked on any of the maps made in the last two hundred years. I only found them because I didn't look at the date on the first map I found in the Republic archives."

Arem glanced around, taking in the corroded duracrete, the almost-dead glowglobes, and the water dripping in various places. "What were they used for, anyway?"

Tasi looked up from the copy of the tunnel map she'd been studying. "I think they were maintenance tunnels for the old underground mass transit system that closed down close to three centuries ago. The main transit tunnels were sealed or repurposed when the rooftop transit opened, but these maintenance tunnels were more or less ignored." Deciding that she had the route fairly well memorized, she put the map away and set off down the tunnel.

As they passed through a patch of darkness left by a failed glowglobe, Tasi remarked, "Keep an eye out, Master. There's likely to be vermin."

* * *

><p><em>A new smell, a new chatter of thought. Good. The creature had recovered its strength preying on the small, slow vermin that seemed to be this tunnel system's only inhabitants. It had been just about ready to venture to the surface for sentient prey, and here some came, wandering into its sanctum.<em>

* * *

><p>Tasi jumped as another spider-rat went streaking past them, almost too fast to see. "I hate these things."<p>

"Now, Tasi, a Jedi is serene. You don't really hate them for being what they are." The amused tone ruined Arem's rebuke.

"Figure of speech, master."

She had been getting jumpier as they navigated the dank tunnel system, Arem reflected.

"Master, do you sense that?" Tasi asked suddenly.

Arem reached out his senses through the Force. At first, he felt nothing, but after a few moments the ghost of another presence became clear. It was unlike anything he'd felt before. Cold, emotionless, yet possessed by an unending hunger. It didn't feel like a thinking being, yet it was nothing like any animal he'd ever felt; a dark purpose drove the hunger.

"Yes, Tasi, I do. I've never felt anything like it before."

"Is… is this of the dark side, Master?"

Arem's bow furrowed as he concentrated on his feelings. "No, I don't think so. It lacks the sense of… corruption that the dark side produces. But it certainly isn't anything we'd call good." He darted a quick glance around the tunnel. "I think it would be best if we left these tunnels as soon as possible."

"We're almost there, Master. The access to the Federation offices is…"

Arem's lightsaber snapped on before she finished the sentence, as he felt the premonition of an attack through the Force. The blurring-fast strike from the creature hidden in the overhead pipes was pulled back before contacting the blue-glowing blade, and the creature managed to shift the momentum of its aborted strike into a quick, swinging jump that landed it upright about ten feet in front of the two Jedi. They had a split second to take in its appearance: four arms, the top set adorned by massive talons, two legs supporting a heavy, hunched-over torso, a bulbous, oversized head sporting an unsettlingly large mouth filled with a forest of needle teeth, and a chitinous exoskeleton covering the thing's whole body like a suit of armor. Two tiny eyes gleamed from deep sockets in an empty, hungry glare. Even with its bent-over posture, the thing was over six feet tall.

As Tasi ignited her own lightsaber, the thing hopped a pace to the side, placing Arem directly between Tasi and itself, and pounced forward.

Warned by the Force, Arem shifted his lightsaber to block as another strike whizzed past, again narrowly missing the humming blade. _Odd, that didn't feel like a feint…_

He struck at the monster, but it twitched aside so fast he couldn't even track it with his eyes. He moved to block again, but was deluged with dozens of contradictory visions of what the thing was going to do, and he realized what was happening. The thing was so fast that it reacted even as he moved to block it!

Arem lifted his blade to block an anticipated strike by the two upper arms, but yet _again_ it managed to avoid touching the lightsaber…and this time it was ready. The lower right arm, sporting clawed hands instead of huge talons, flicked out and grabbed Arem's hand, closing around his fist and trapping the lightsaber.

It was just as strong as it was fast, too. Before he could do anything, it yanked on his arm, ripping it off at the shoulder with a spray of blood.

He didn't even have time to feel the pain before it took his head off.

* * *

><p>Tasi didn't even have time to move up in support of her master before the creature launched the blurring series of strikes that culminated in Arem's brutal demise. Part of her wanted to freeze in shock as the head of the man who had trained her for more than ten years went spinning past, but she knew she couldn't afford even an instant's inactivity. She also knew that she didn't even come close to matching her master's grasp of the precognitive techniques used in Jedi swordplay, and would last even less than the second or so her Master had managed.<p>

The creature didn't even wait for the corpse to fall. Lashing out with a backhand strike of one of its upper arms, it smashed Jol-Kober's body out of its way and flung the arm it still grasped at Tasi. As she ducked the arm, still clutching its active lightsaber, she lashed out with a wave of telekinetic force, shoving the creature away down the corridor.

Then she turned and ran.

The Force push should have knocked the thing a significant distance down the corridor, giving Tasi an ample lead should the creature choose to pursue. Unfortunately, it wasn't in a cooperative mood. Before it had flown more than ten feet, it lashed out with two of its arms, one grabbing an exposed pipe while the other simply dug foot-long talons into the duracrete wall, arresting its backward momentum. An instant later, it had flung itself in pursuit of its escaping prey.

* * *

><p><em>The sentient was escaping! Unacceptable. Totally unacceptable. If it escaped, it would warn the other sentients of its presence, and that would have a serious effect on its freedom of movement. It might even result in the creature's death before it had built its brood! This couldn't be allowed. The sentient <em>must_ be caught and, ideally, infected. But if this was not possible, the creature would just kill her. There would be more, later._

* * *

><p>Tasi glanced back over her shoulder to see the creature much closer behind her than she'd thought. After it had struck from ambush, she had hoped it was unable to run fast over long distances, but this clearly wasn't the case. It followed her in a bounding, scuttling manner that made use of all six limbs and was profoundly unsettling to watch. It was undeniably fast, though. She ran full-tilt back down the tunnels, following the only route she knew to be unobstructed; the path back to the trap door by which she and Arem had entered the tunnel system.<p>

Glancing back again, she hit the monster with another wave of Force telekinesis. She caught it a bit off-guard, flinging it back a few feet, but again it caught itself and shot after her. Desperate to escape now, she hit it again, but this time it barely even slowed. It seemed to anticipate the attack just before she threw it, and gripped hard with all four hands. The shove didn't dislodge it at all.

It did, however, buy her just enough time to get to the trapdoor. Shoving it open with another Force push, she leaped up and back into the alleyway.

She landed almost in the arms of the three battle droids left to watch the door to the rooftop walkways.

Tasi didn't even wait for the droids to act. Even as the leader called out "Halt, Jedi!" in its reedy, mechanical voice, she was off, sprinting down the alleyway. That _thing_ couldn't be far behind.

Indeed it wasn't. Before she'd gone five paces, as she unconsciously tensed her back muscles in anticipation of a blaster bolt, she heard a horrible shriek from behind. Glancing back again, she saw the monster smash into one of the droids.

As she rounded the corner, there came a sound remarkably like cans being crushed.

She could feel through the Force that the droids hadn't stopped the thing (she hadn't really expected that they would) but they _had_ slowed it down for a moment. Thinking fast, she extended her Force sense, looking for…

There.

She no longer cared if the Federation droids saw her; her mission was scrubbed anyway. So she set off at top speed for the greatest threat she could sense, the beast right on her heels. _Thank the Force these alleyways are deserted. I'd hate to think of what would happen if it ran into any bystanders…_

Fortunately, the bystanders she found were made of bronzium alloys. The two destroyer droids had been positioned at an alley intersection to watch for the reappearance of the two Jedi. Tasi snapped her lightsaber on as she vaulted over the two shielded droids, and had to put her full concentration into blocking their rapid-fire blaster bolts. Tasi was just a Padawan, barely seventeen years old, and it was all she could do to keep the bolts from hitting her. As she deflected the shots all over the alleyway, she backed slowly away, waiting. Fortunately, she didn't have to wait long.

The creature hurtled around the corner already set for trouble. All four sets of talons were extended as it pounced forward. The nerve-shattering screech it emitted when it slammed into the destroyer droid's shield gave Tasi a moment of hope.

Detecting the monster as a threat, the droids began pivoting about to bring it under their guns. Tasi backed away, wanting to see if they'd manage to finally kill the beast. It couldn't hurt them through their shields, so she expected it to retreat.

Instead, it flipped to the side and wrenched a light pole out of the ground. The young Jedi's jaw dropped as it swung the massive metal pole in an arc that terminated at the edge of a spherical shield.

That by itself wasn't enough to breach the shield; far from it. What it did do was hurl the droid sideways. Right into its partner.

The interaction of the two shields was both spectacular and energetic. They fizzed with bright blue lightning for a moment, then collapsed with a thundercrack of sound and the sharp, acrid scent of ozone.

The creature sprung on the two unshielded droids, ripping the first droid's arms off and crushing its head in a flashing spasm of violence. It leaped at the other droid, which was lying on its side and trying to right itself. Tasi realized as she saw it dig its claws into the round housing on the droid's underside that she'd finally seen it make a mistake.

The claws breached the tough housing of the small reactor, and it underwent what is called a "Catastrophic Failure." Tasi ducked around a corner as flying white-hot pieces of droid went shooting down the alley, then peeked back at the blast site.

All was still. She felt a moment of elation before something stirred in the corner.

The creature shoved itself unsteadily back to its feet. One of its upper arms was missing entirely, ripped away at the shoulder, and dark blood leaked from dozens of cracks in the thing's exoskeleton. It staggered for a moment, blinked, and then its eyes locked on Tasi's. Its lips peeled back from teeth stained with its own blood and it let out a low, enraged hiss.

For just a fleeting instant, Tasi was completely paralyzed by an unaccustomed feeling of absolute terror. It was _still alive?_

Tasi bolted, heading through the most deserted alleys she could find back to the spaceport. She had to get back to the ship; the Jedi Council _had_ to be told. If there were more of these things down in the tunnels, and they were all _that tough_…

Fortunately, the brutal injuries seemed to have robbed the thing of some of its freakish speed. Tasi mentally thanked her master (shoving aside the spike of grief she felt) for his insistence on running as a way to keep fit; she'd grumbled about it before, but there was no _way_ she was going to complain now. She was actually managing to gain a bit on the thing, but it was going to be a tight squeeze to see if she'd be able to get into her ship and lift off before it got to the door. Given its previous demonstrations, she had no doubt _at all_ that it would be able to rip through the hatch if it got there before she could take off, and at this point she wasn't about to bet on its injuries weakening it that much.

She emerged from the alleyways close to where Arem had parked the ship. She dashed up and hit the hatch release, cursing every moment the door took to open, and watching anxiously over her shoulder for the appearance of her pursuer. Just as she ducked into the ship she saw it shoot from the alley exit she'd used.

Breathless with terror, she flung herself into the pilot's couch. She went through the engine startup far faster than was safe, and hit the throttle sooner than she really should have.

The ship took off like a scalded mynock while an indignant squawk came from the commlink; traffic control did _not_ approve of her hasty, unannounced takeoff. A glance at the hatch showed it to be unbreached, and a check of the exterior cameras showed no unwelcome hitchhikers. Looking out the viewport, she saw she'd done a fair bit of damage to the buildings close to the edge of the starport when she'd taken off, and the monster should have been right at the center of the danger zone. There was no trace of it, the thrusters had vaporized it completely.

Tasi put the ship on autopilot, and set it to hover outside the traffic areas. She started trembling with reaction as she finished.

Then she covered her face with her shaking hands. She couldn't stop the tears flowing down her face, or the harsh sobs wracking her body. Arem's face, the face of the man who'd been the closest thing to a father she'd ever known, went tumbling past over and over in her memory, his head no longer attached to his body, and his nightmarish, unstoppable killer coming after her.

* * *

><p><em>Disaster! The sentient that had seen it had escaped its reach! Soon the other sentients of this world would know of it, and would slay it before the brood was established!<em>

_Fortunate that the escaping sentient had alerted it to the fact that these creatures possessed space travel. The creature limped into another ship, this one a large cargo ship with the scents of hundreds of different sentients permeating it. The isolated corner that the creature found was already occupied, the dirty sentient stowaway recoiling in shock as the creature's burned, battered shape intruded on its sanctum._

_The creature had no time for finesse, and wasn't currently interested in starting its brood. It was, however, _very_ hungry._

_After its repast, as it settled in to the isolated corner of the tramp freighter, the creature sank into a healing sleep. It had been injured, and badly, but it would heal. And a freighter was _ideal_ for spreading a new brood far and wide…_


End file.
